From the drear North, a cold and cheerless land, Our fathers sprang. They drove no flocks to crop the tender grass, They gazed on lonely moor, on deep morass, And wintry skies whence, to their viking band, The raven sang. O'er flowerless lands the storm-tossed forests threw A gloomy pall. On treacherous seas they raised their plundering sail, Fought with the waves, outrode the Northern gale, High overhead the startled sea gulls flew With clamoring call. They heard the breakers smite the quivering shore With thunder roll. No songs they sang to greet the Harvest wain In happy fields rich with the ripened grain; Stern was their world, a sorrow stern they bore Deep in the soul. Through countless years, faint memories of their times Will oft awake. From waves and shifting sands, their resting place, The Norsemen send us, offspring of their race, Dimly remembered dreams, like minster chimes Heard o'er a lake. So come dark moments, when in this green land Norsemen are we; And crave the sorrow of the leafless wood, Or seek some barren dune's gray solitude To hear bleak winds go moaning down the sand, By the wild sea. |